[Access] notes from the Co-ordinating council meeting

[Barb Prentice]

I haven't been able to make any of the Accessibility committee 
meetings, but have followed the list serve. as a member of the Social 
Justice Committee, I think these concerns are very much social 
justice concerns. I think Mary puts it very well.

Barb

At 06:37 PM 1/12/2008, mary otten wrote:
>i agree with cindy's comments below. and _social justice doesn't 
>just mean in the wider world, although that is certainly a large 
>part. what  about anti-racism multi-cultural work within 
>congregations? or welcoming congregation and the welcoming of all 
>people, no matter whether they are gay bi- trans- or straight? 
>indeed, i would argue that walking the talk at home, so to speak, is 
>a huge part of credibility in the wider community. int case, 
>accessibility within the church community is most definitely a part 
>of social justice. but you're both right. thesetfors are going to be 
>discussed more, especially ministerial.
>mary
>but
>----- source message -----
>from: Lucinda Pitcairn <lucindap at comcast.net>
>to: Accessibility group <access at uueugene.org>
>date: 2008/01/13 01:29:37
>subject: Re: [Access] notes from the Co-ordinating council meeting
>
> >
> >
> > David Gilmartin wrote:
> > CLUSTER DISCUSSION: In our work planning, at our last meeting, for
> > this year and next, it seemed to me that our goals had to do with
> > accessibility and welcomingness within the church building and
> > congregational life.
> > This may be true for the coming months, but our goals, as 
> outlined in our committee proposal, go beyond that, to some degree. 
> Secondly, I did not come away with the impression from our last 
> meeting that we had done all the work planning for this year or next.
> >
> > As far as the cluster descriptions go (from
> > January 12 agenda), I think this may be a better fit with
> > "Ministerial" than "Social Justice."
> > I think we need better definitions of these two terms, something 
> that will no doubt be deliberated upon by the clusters task force.
> >
> >  Social Justice, to me, carries the implication of doing 
> something in and for the wider world.
> > It does to me, too, but one could argue that making our church 
> more accessible in both the literal and figurative sense is also 
> practicing social justice.
> >
> > Cindy
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jan 12, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Mary Otten wrotecci attended that 
> meeting this morning, as did Mariah.   There is definite interest 
> in our check-list, including some specific numbers
> > that will ensure that power wheel-chairs can be accommodated. It was
> > mentioned that having somebody who uses a wheel-chair go on site
> > visits
> > is a good idea, but there are ADA numbers as well, so I think it would
> > be good to get specific on the check list and include such numbers,
> > e.g. as pertains to bath-room access and meeting set up, aisles, row
> > spacing etc.  Sue Craig mentioned her concern specificaly with regard
> > to the upcoming service auction. she wants to make sure that they set
> > things up so that folks who use power chairs will be able to move
> > around. Since I doubt the check list will be finalized by the time of
> > the auction, it might be a nice idea if Cindy and Sue could get
> > together via e-mail or telephone or whatever to discuss that aspect of
> > things specifically as they relate to this event.  There is also
> > interest in having our check-list put together with Candee-s list
> > about
> > how to get child care, since lack of child care is also an
> > accessibility barrier, albeit of a different sort than what we deal
> > with directly.
> >
> > At the meeting, there was discussion about the committee clusters
> > idea,
> > and there was talk of putting us into the social justice cluster.
> > further work is going to be done on this whole topic; a
> > subcommitteedd/task force has been formed to do that work.  I can't
> > recall who volunteered for it, but I know Ken and Mariah are on this
> > list, and I'm sure one or both of them will be able to fill in. So if
> > anyone has definite ideas about this topic, contact one of the members
> > of that subcommittee and make your wishes known. I know one of the
> > folks is Sarah Hendrickson.
> >
> > We also talked about the issue of when its preferable to hold a
> > meeting
> > at church and when off site is ok, and I made the points that we
> > discussed at our last meeting, emphasizing that we were not trying to
> > dump guilt trips on people, but that we did expect that meetings where
> > anybody might be expected to come should be held at church, and that
> > off site locations of such meetings should be chosen with
> > accessibility
> > in mind. and there was some discussion as to just what that meant. I
> > hope I got the idea across that the bottom line is that, a: we
> > recognize that its not always going to be possible to hold all open
> > meetings at church; b: its not always going to be possible to have off
> > site locations be 100% comfortably accessible; but c: it is essential
> > that we try to make that happen, and that people know that the best
> > effort was made to make it so. Its a lot easier to take "no" for an
> > answer if you really feel like best efforts were expended.
> >
> > If Ken or Mariah want to add anythingh to my summary of acces-related
> > CC topics, please feel free to speak up.
> >
> > mary
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Access at uueugene.org
> > http://www.uueugene.org
> > http://www.uueugene.org/mailman/listinfo/access
> >
> >
> >
> >
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